But the thing is, of course, that you are framing your answer to not include the original case. In my book that is just a non-answer.
You even started out with "a funny" saying "look at this site you're reading". You didn't care if it fitted the case, you just wanted to say something clever. Very Reddit-like (and I do like Reddit).
But in what we could call an open environment where people do not care about their reputation - such as Vice - what can you do?
That's your interpretation. I interpreted the original claim by erdojo that "User-generated commentary can be done right" as a general assertion that there are ways to achieve meaningful conversation, just like the one we're having now.
> In what we could call an open environment where people do not care about their reputation - such as Vice - what can you do?
Now you are framing the answer. If you want to know how to build a good comment system, my answer is "don't create an open environment where people do not care about their reputation".
If you find this to be a non-answer, maybe it's because I didn't reply to what you thought was the question - but that question had not been made explicit, so there was leeway in how to address it.